Thorny Blue Rose – In LMC

NGC 1970 and NGC 2001 Near the Tarantula Nebula in the LMC - Wonderful description by Alex Zaytsev

The image covers the central area of the LMC 3 Supergiant shell [1, 2] located North-West of the Tarantula nebula of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), containing a star association NGC 2001 and multiple diffuse structures out of which the most prominent are:

LHA 120-N 144 [3] and LI-LMC 1076 [4] HII regions housing multiple open cluster out of which the largest are NGC 1953, NGC 1966, and "interstellar shells / open clusters NGC 1962, NGC 1965, NGC 1970” (left center of the FOV),
DEM L 210 [5] HII region accompanied by the open cluster NGC 1983 (top right part of the FOV),
BSDL 1670 [6] and BSDL 1683 [7] interstellar shells (lower left corner of the FOV).

Many dark nebulae, open star clusters, and planetary nebulae are present in the scene, yet two most intriguing features found here are both associated with LHA 120-N 144 [3] HII region as highlighted in the cropped version of the image shown in Fig. 1:

A faint elliptical arc that is fitted well by an ellipse with axis lengths of 360 ly x 940 ly (at the estimated distance to LMC of 158 kly) that is visible on one side of the region and marked as X1 in Fig 1.
A set of compact shells approximately 56 ly across surrounding the red supergiant star HD 269551A [8] (which forms a binary system together with HD 269551B [9]) - marked as X2 in Fig 1. The HD 269551A [8] is the second largest star in the LMC with the physical radius estimated at 1439 solar radii (measured using photometric method based on data obtained from [10, 11]) which places it in TOP 15 on the list of the largest stars known to date. The structure of the compact nebula - multiple contric shells surrounding the HD 269551A [8] - suggests a physical connection to that star.